Tigers walk-off Jays in 11th inning as Toronto drops another series

Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera tosses his bat after being awarded a bases-loaded walk to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in the 11th inning of a baseball game, Sunday, July 16, 2017, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

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DETROIT — The series win was there for the taking, but the Blue Jays were a combination of too wild with their pitches, too sloppy with their defence and just unable to take advantage when the scoring opportunities presented themselves.

It was one loss, but it felt like a microcosm of the entire season. Showing only flashes of the kind of baseball this group has thrilled the Toronto fan base with the previous few years, the Jays again were unable to finish the job, even when presented with glowing opportunities as they dropped a 6-5 decision in 11 innings to the Tigers.

The Jays lost the rubber match of this very winnable series when reliever Lucas Harrell missed wide of the plate on a full count pitch to Miguel Cabrera with the bases loaded and two out, forcing in the winning run.

It was an awful way to lose but few would argue that it wasn’t about what the Jays deserved on this day.

“Really, the way we have been playing, we are right where we should be, playing the way we have in all phases of the game,” manager John Gibbons said.

Officially, the Jays committed three errors in this one, the winning run unearned when Josh Donaldson failed to come up with a tough, but makeable, play on a ground ball directly over the third base bag. Donaldson appeared to field it, but dropped the ball making the transfer from glove to throwing hand, leaving Nicholas Castellanos safe at first. Castellanos would have been the second out of the inning after a leadoff walk to Alex Avila who was then sacrificed to second.

Justin Upton followed Castellanos with the second walk of the inning to load the bases before Harrell failed to find the strike zone with Cabrera.

In all, Jays pitchers issued seven free passes on the day, 14 in the final two games of the series.

Twice the Jays had leads in this game, opening it up with three runs in the first inning. But that lead was immediately handed back in the bottom of the first before the Tigers made it 4-3 in the fourth.

However, Jose Bautista went yard for the second time in the series with a man aboard in the fifth and the Jays were back up 5-4.

The second lead stood up until reliever Danny Barnes was taken deep by J.D. Martinez in the eighth on a play that was initially ruled a double before going to review.

Jays starter Marco Estrada gave back the first lead, almost by himself, as he began the game unable to throw strikes.

Then when he did get himself straightened away, his defence let him down.

Estrada came into the game not having pitched in 13 days and it showed early on as he needed 36 pitches alone just to get out of the first inning.

Two walks, two hits and two sacrifice fly balls later and the 3-0 lead he was given was back to even.

“It just felt weird to me,” Estrada said. “Once I got out of that inning, I felt great. I felt like myself again. I thought I made a lot of good pitches. Certain things didn’t really go my way after that but I look back and other than Upton’s hit in the first (a double) I don’t remember much else being hit too hard. I am taking those positives with me and move on to the next one.”

After a one-sided talk with John Gibbons who paid him an early visit because he didn’t feel his pitcher was letting the ball go, Estrada rebounded with an eight- pitch second inning. He even admitted Gibbons probably got him going with his visit.

The ultimate undoing though came in the fourth when with any help at all from his defence, Estrada likely puts a different spin on the entire afternoon.

The first hiccup was a total misread on the parts of centre fielder Kevin Pillar and right fielder Bautista on a ball off the bat of Alex Presley that was headed for the right-centre gap. Both players began towards the ball but neither was going hard until both realized their mistakes. The catchable ball dropped in for a double.

James McCann, the next Tigers hitter laced a ball toward the gap in left centre but left fielder Ezequiel Carrera appeared to have a bead on that one. He got to the ball in time and had it in his glove but failed to squeeze it before colliding with the outfield wall. That scored Presley from second and put the Jays back in a hole.

Estrada did not survive the inning as Gibbons went to his bullpen with two out and two on.

The pen was pretty good from that point on, but had to be perfect and Gibbons admitted expecting perfection for five full innings was probably asking a bit much.

“It’s tough to ask your bullpen to go five clean innings there at the end,” he said.

With the loss, the Jays fall six full games back of the wild card and have a four game series in Fenway waiting for them against a Red Sox team showing signs of running away from the rest of the AL East.

IT'S NOT 'LOOKING RIGHT' FOR LIRIANO

For Francisco Liriano, just a pain in the neck at this point would likely be looked at as a best- case scenario. And perhaps that is all it will turn out to be.

All the Blue Jays lefty knew for sure Sunday morning was he was feeling pain and tightness on the right side of his neck.

He had not been able to sleep the night before after coming out after just two innings of Saturday’s 11-1 loss.

Liriano did reveal that the discomfort actually began as he was warming up for Saturday’s game.

He said catcher Russell Martin was out a few times to ask him if he was having any problems, but Liriano wasn’t ready to admit his issues. He still wanted to help his team win a gaem.

“I was playing catch and getting ready for the game and it was getting worse the more I threw. I had a lot of a headache in back and the right side. I couldn’t turn right,” he said.

“It was getting worse pitching from the stretch. I couldn’t look (to the right) so I couldn’t land. I had to spin (fall off to the third base side of the mound) to avoid the pain. The more I threw, the worse it go so that was why I stopped.”

Liriano eventually saw a doctor nearer to game time on Sunday and had improved sufficiently that an MRI was deemed unnecessary.

The Jays will treat the issue with rest for now.

This is not Liriano’s first time dealing with a troublesome neck but the previous times the problems occurred on the left side.

He was not prepared to say his start on Thursday in Boston was in any jeopardy but he was also unable to look to his right without turning his entire body to do so.

“It just feels really sore and tight,” Liriano said. “I don’t know what it is. We’lll give it a couple more days and see how it feels and we will go from there.”

MLB

Tigers walk-off Jays in 11th inning as Toronto drops another series

The series win was there for the taking, but the Blue Jays were a combination of too wild with their pitches, too sloppy with their defence and just unable to take advantage when the scoring opportunities presented themselves.